Epiblog for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley, with some progress on some fronts. On Monday afternoon, my phone rang, It was the intermediate care team. As predicted, Oakmoor, aka Broadmoor, had re-opened now the biddies were no longer vomiting, and there was a bed available. Did I want to go that afternoon?

Completely taken aback, I tried to convey that actually, I’d been told there would be two or three days warning, and, as I had a stack if things a yard and a half long to do, which I couldn’t in all fairness just lump on to Deb, even if she wasn’t teaching all week, covering classes for people who were off on adoption leave (a new one on me) and preparing for an Ofsted visit, could I go in, say, on Thursday instead?

To be fair, once I’d explained all this, they were both sweetness and light about it, and agreed. Of course, no problem. About half an hour later, they rang me back and said actually, er, you know when we said “no problem”, erm, well, there is a problem, because the physio goes on rotation from Thursday, so you might as well wait and come in on Monday, the day the new physio starts.

OK, I said, no problem for me, we’re only looking at missing one, maybe two days (depending what time on Monday I get picked up) and it would take the pressure off, even more. So, Monday it was, then. The next day, they rang up and said could I do Thursday after all.

By then, I had arranged stuff to fill in up until at least Monday, I didn’t want to lose the bed, but on the other hand… so, in the end, after much discussion, Monday it still was, for which I earned a flea in the ear from my physio, who asked me in a pained way if I realised how lucky I was, that they had moved heaven and earth to get me in there, and that it would have served me right if they had given my bed to someone else. So that told me. Unfortunately, yet another manifestation of the ever present tension between fiscal health and physical health. It seems you can have one, but only at the expense of the other. Still, at least the census form, which I filled in weeks ago on the assumption that I would be here, then realised I probably wouldn’t when this Broadmoor thing came up, was in fact right after all, and I really was here on that night. Pity, in a way, I was looking forward to confusing genealogists of the future by being on the 2011 census twice, to balance my complete absence from the 1981 one, because my then landlady forgot to add my details!

This was the week when what passes for Spring finally arrived, or at least, April did. “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, the droght of Mersh hath perced to the roote..” as Chaucer said. In fact, all of the cliches about April were present in the garden this week, not only April showers, but all the stuff which, according to Robert Gravy-Browning, is happening, in England, now. Of course, April is also the cruellest month, if we believe T S Eliot, when our expectations and hopes are stirred and raised, only to then remain unfulfilled.

Perhaps both versions of April are true – at least for me at the moment. At this juncture, at this time of the year, I certainly do feel like one of Chaucer’s pilgrims, at the outset of an adventure, a pilgrimage, one that does hold a degree of hope and salvation for me, in that these few weeks will determine if I ever walk again. At the same time, I remain acutely aware of the possibility that it could all end in failure. All I can do, all anyone can ever do, in fact, is to give it my best shot, and, if I do go down, to go down fighting.

The animals have had a good week. Tiggy has been making good use of the patch of sunshine on the rug. She’s gradually moving round the whole of the rug, as the sun and the earth slowly gyrate, a bit like a motif or a constellation, mirroring the movement of Sirius in the heavens, perhaps, as the orbits of the universe wheel incessantly. Kitty has been going out onto the decking and just sitting there, having a good look round. I watched her the other day and realised she was actually preening, she too had found a patch of warm April sunlight and was enjoying feeling its unaccustomed warmth on her back, as she sat there, purring for no particular reason, giving off a general air of contentment. Other than that, she’s been her usual self, eating the cat food, then eating the dog food, then sitting in her cat bed on the hearth and smearing the remains and the gravy all over her whiskers and her head in an elaborately messy wash with her front paw. Again, human mealtimes would be greatly enlivened if we all adopted this particular manifestation of cat etiquette.

Freddie has been unusually well behaved. The other day he stayed resolutely snoozing on the settee, only emitting a brief cursory growl at the spectacle of a grey squirrel scampering across the decking, up on to the bird table, and sitting there boldly helping itself to the last remnants of the old Christmas pudding that has also been sustaining the thrushes. Normally, such squirrel-impertinence would have Freddie hurling himself at the double-glazing in a paroxysm of barking, but for once I was glad it didn’t, because it gave me a chance to study the squirrel in more detail, as it sat just outside the window, its little jaws munching furiously, the tightly bunched muscles of its legs and arms, and the feathery glory of its bushy tail, flecked with golden fur amongst the silver. Its wary little eyes were like hard, tiny nuts themselves, or small beads of shining jet. I know, of course, and I have said so before, here, that grey squirrels are just cute rats with good P.R., but nevertheless, this one was a heartstoppingly beautiful example of the breed, just for that moment.

Zak has developed a new game, grandmother’s footsteps. Actually, that, in itself, is quite an old game, we used to pay it in the playground when I was a kid, but it’s new to him, and Zak’s unique take on it involves cat food, as do so many other facets of his existence, in fact. He knows that there is some left over cat food in the dish just inside the kitchen door, but to get to it, he has to pass me, in my position where I usually sit in my wheelchair, writing. So he waits til all is quiet, then slowly slides off his chair in the conservatory, taking a couple of tentative tiptoeing steps in my direction.

As soon as I look up at him, he stops dead in his tracks, in mid-stride, and holds the position like a “pointer”, until I bend my attention back down to my reporters’ notebook and resume scribbling, then he sets off again, until he is almost level with me. I look up, and he stops again. It’s got to the stage now where I can play head games with him by looking down then immediately looking up again, really quickly, so that he has to go stop-start-stop. Eventually, I give in, and pretend to have a long period of looking down and concentrating on my work, allowing him to slink past, belly low to the ground, and polish off what remains in Kitty’s dish.

I was briefly left on my own in charge of all the animals on Thursday afternoon, as Debbie had already set off for teaching and Granny was out doing her errands, so I took the opportunity of addressing them en masse, Tiglet on the rug, Zak in his armchair, Freddie on the settee, and Kitty in her bed on the hearth. I felt a bit like George VI, broadcasting to the Empire, but I told them that Daddy would have to go away again for a time, and that while I was gone, they must all be good animals, not play Mummy up, do what they were told, come when they were called, and not go missing or get hurt or injured in any way, and that I would see them all again soon. I don’t know how much of it sunk in, but it made me feel better.

Deb has been out and about, teaching the teachers at one point this week. I got up early with her on Thursday morning and, while she was bustling around getting her stuff ready, I logged on to the internet briefly. When she asked me what I was doing I said I was checking whether Dewsbury had been obliterated overnight in a retaliatory air raid by Libya, in which case there would be no point in her setting off, and she replied that I shouldn’t bother, because even if it had, no-one would notice the difference. By the time she had gone and I had got my own stuff together, the ambulance men arrived for me, to take me down to HRI for my physio , and once more I was carted out of the house by two huffing and puffing ambulance persons, though I was in part able to reassure them that there will at least be a survey for a concrete ramp next week, if not actually the ramp itself.

Following physio, I had my appointment with the consultant to discuss my follow up scan, which took all of five minutes, I am glad to say, and the remaining twenty five were taken up with talking about cricket and England’s unseemly exit from the World Cup. Having found that he used to be a member at Old Trafford during my previous visit, I’d sent him a copy of Zen and the Art of Nurdling in the interim, and he thanked me for it and described it as “obviously a labour of love” which I am not sure was entirely a vote of confidence, as it’s the sort of noncommittal thing you say about people who make models of the west front of Wells Cathedral out of used matchsticks and ear wax. On the way home, the ambulance went through Longroyd Bridge and I noticed once again that D & S Supplies had the blackboard outside advertising invisible nails, so they must have had a fresh delivery – but how did they know?

And so we came to the weekend, and the end of my last week of freedom, for a while. Once more, uncertainty awaits, so while I can, I might as well turn to my trusty Book of Common Prayer and see what the words of wisdom are for people like me who are feeling bereft and trepidacious, this first Sunday of April?

The Collect is the usual up-and-down stuff about us deserving to be punished for our evil deeds. I have to say that, while there are undoubtedly some people who deserve to be punished for their evil deeds, I query at my inclusion in that number, at least last week. I can’t recall having done anything particularly evil. It does go on to ask,though, that we should be relieved by the comfort of grace, which I suppose is the actual point of the prayer, and I will go along with that.

The Epistle is Galatians 4, 21-end, which I have to say I find completely incomprehensible. I know that it is probably my fault, and that if I cared to www.googleforit, I could probably find out what all this stuff about Abraham having two children, one of a free woman and one of a bondmaid was all about, and all this stuff about Mount Sinai, which is Agar, and the unhealthy preoccupation with “bondage” which people like me with a puerile sense of humour find so amusing. Right now, though, I am not in the mood for obscure Old Testament allegory. I am in the mood for screwing my courage to the sticking place, pinning on my scallop badge and taking up my staff, and “goon on pilgrimages”, as Chaucer might have said. Although emotionally, I am more like the poet a few hundred years earlier, who wrote, in the Anglo Saxon epic The Seafarer, where the anonymous bard knows that the coming of Summer marks a sad time when he must leave for the uncertainty of what the Saxons called the “whale-road”

he always has a longing
he who strives on the waves.
Groves take on blossoms,
the cities grow fair,
the fields are comely,
the world seems new:
all these things urge on
the eager of spirit,
the mind to travel,
in one who so thinks
to travel far
on the paths of the sea.
So the cuckoo warns
with a sad voice;
the guardian of summer sings,
bodes a sorrow
grievous in the soul.

So I turn to the New Testament text and find that it is John 6, 1-14, and coincidentally also about the sea, in that it is the famous story of the feeding of the five thousand.

After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.

I hadn’t actually sat down and read this for ages, probably not since I was at school, and reading it again today I was immediately struck by why Jesus should have felt that the catering arrangements were down to him, after all it wasn’t as if these 5000 spectators had been invited, with a card that said RSVP and promised wine and nibbles. But then it seems to be some sort of test of Philip, who doesn’t exactly pass with flying colours. I love, also the description of the “lad”. I have this vision of Simon Peter or someone saying, “Lord, there’s a lad here who says he’ll go to t’chippy for us” and Jesus replying, “OK, here’s 20 shekels, tell him to get haddock and chips 5000 times.” But then I have an overactive imagination and I am easily amused. I do know there wouldn’t have been twelve baskets of leftovers if Zak had been around that day, anyway.

Obviously the real importance is the description of the miracle. This isn’t really the time, nor do I have the patience, right now, for a detailed exposition of the theory of miracles, whether or not it is possible to cause a real physical change in what we call reality by a conscious application and effort of the mind, based on a strong enough belief. I hope it is. I am very interested in miracles right now, for obvious reasons, and my Novenas are stacking up in St Jude’s in-tray. If this was email, I would definitely be in his spam folder. After I finish typing this, I am going to start assembling my stuff for tomorrow’s pilgrimage, and set off in my frail two-wheeled barque, over the wide and trackless seas of the unknown future, hoping to find safe harbour, and return one day maybe under my own steam. I feel like the singer of the traditional Scottish song, “Farewell to Tarwathie” where he sings

“The birds here sing sweetly, on mountain and dale,
But there’s never a birdie, to sing to the whale…”

So, hoist the Blue Peter, weigh the anchor (14 tons would be my guess) cast off on both needles, splice the mainbrace, walk the plank, and tap the Admiral. One more night by my own hearth, then down to the harbour to take ship for Outremer, and wherever the tide will bear me. There is a tide, in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood… and if Jesus can walk on water, could I just walk, please?